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FP269 – Coffin: Infrastructure, Part 2 of 3

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode two hundred and sixty-nine.

Flash PulpTonight we present Coffin: Infrastructure, Part 2 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp269.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Haywire.

 

Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

Tonight, Will Coffin, urban shaman, and Bunny, professional lush, approach a blackened pit in the wilds of rural Oregon.

 

Coffin: Infrastructure, Part 2 of 3

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

 

Bunny was alone, at a white topped table, sipping from the chipped mug that held her morning coffee. She knew she’d put too much whiskey in, but her irritation at her traveling companion had made her pouring hand heavy.

Across the motel lobby’s sitting area was a freshly showered man whose black suit stood sharply against the wallpaper’s pastel floral pattern. His cologne was far reaching, and there was a laptop bag at his feet, so she guessed he was likely staying on business. He was rifling the breakfast buffet’s selection of muffins, hoping, Bunny thought, for any that might contain chocolate chips.

She knew there were none, as she’d eaten the last three.

Through the entrance’s sliding glass doors she could see Coffin occupying the battered phone booth at the edge of the parking lot, but there was too much distance and filmy dirt between them to speculate on how his call was going.

Finally, as the cloud of cologne receded through a side exit with a lump of bran in his palm, Will returned the receiver to its cradle.

Moments later they were in the rented Volkswagen Golf, and heading south.

Since stepping off of their sudden cross-country flight, Bunny had attempted a passive-aggressive silence, but she was beginning to realize it was akin to teaching a kid proper eating habits by allowing him to devour as much chocolate icing as he wanted.

Outside her window, Bunny watched an unending procession of rocks and trees slide by.

“Nice chat?” she asked.

“I suppose,” he replied.

“Excellent, excellent – and, if I might enquire, what the #### are we doing in Oregon?”

“We’ve come to visit some people I know, and the canary they take care of.”

“So what was that hot rod bull#### last night, and who do you keep talking to on the phone?”

“The people we’re heading towards – they’re the sort of folks you don’t want to surprise. It’s always best to give them plenty of notice before you approach, and it doesn’t hurt to do them a few favours first either.”

Bunny’s bottle of Jim Beam gave out as she was considering her reply.

“Got a few bucks for, uhm, coffee?” she asked, “Mine’s getting a little low.”

“They don’t sell booze in gas stations here, but I happen to know there’s a store ahead.”

By the time she returned to the car, Tom Waits was singing too loudly to allow for further conversation.

* * *

The cold marked the season as unarguably winter, but snow had yet to touch the thick evergreens beyond the gate at which they parked.

The fence stretched into the distance on either side of them, though the majority of it cut through the greenery, and was thus invisible from the road.

Coffin paused at the entrance, gave a badly faked stage-cough, and produced a key.

Though the chain link looked freshly raised – despite the weather, Bunny could see no sign of rust on the razor wire that ran its length – the lock was flecked with red and hanging from a too-flimsy chain.

Once inside, she couldn’t help but remark on the fact.

“Seems like a waste to use such an ancient piece of junk, considering how much the rest of the security must have cost. That thing doesn’t look like it would keep out a determined toddler; I’m surprised it didn’t come apart in your hands.”

“The clasp isn’t corroded,” said a bassy-voiced sprawling pine on her left, ”it’s always been crimson. It used to be a heavy necklace – a locket, of sorts.

“It was originally built to keep a queen safe, but it does well as our door stop.”

“Oh, ####,” replied Bunny, “is this an Ent moot?”

Will suggested she drink her coffee.

From within the shelter of the boughs appeared a set of hazel eyes, under which hung a pair of pressed lips. The needles began to shiver, and the form of a youth pulled free of the timber. Bunny realized his invisibility was achieved through the clever combination of makeup and rags.

“You’re a few months late, Sheriff,” the newcomer told Coffin.

“I’ve been busy,” replied the leather-jacketed shaman.

“You think that means it’s been nothing but a slumber party here?”

“No, I suppose it hasn’t. How’s this: I’ll go apologize to your Pa, then maybe I’ll let you beat me in a few rounds of chess – that is, unless you’ve got too many competitors already lined up?”

“I’d lead you in, but…” started the teen. He allowed his sentence to trail into a smile.

“I know the route,” replied Coffin.

They shook hands and parted ways.

Five minutes down the thin dirt path, Bunny was damning herself for having been so easily silenced earlier.

“Who are these guys? Anything spooky?” she asked.

“Yes and no. They’re berserkers of the old school. Dangerous, but nothing mystical. Ten generations of otherwise normal people raised on rage, ritual, and magic mushrooms. Mathias back there is the middle child, with a living sister on either side of him.”

“He didn’t seem particularly angry.”

“Hard to stay mad when the ice cream guy comes. Besides, I happen to know his younger sister, who could likely take us both on at the same time in a bare-knuckle boxing match, is getting married. Being so isolated, the Keepers are very family oriented. We caught them in a good mood, which is lucky, and a bit surprising.”

“What are they keeping, and what are we doing here?”

“We’re going to hold a party. These people only have two holidays a year – The Waking, and The Feast. Just be glad we’re here for The Feast.

“Before you gorge yourself on cheap beer and over-cooked roasted meat, however, we’ve got to check on an angry twelve-hundred-pound canary.”

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

 

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

FP268 – Coffin: Infrastructure, Part 1 of 3

Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode two hundred and sixty-eight.

Flash PulpTonight we present Coffin: Infrastructure, Part 1 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp268.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)

 

This week’s episodes are brought to you by Haywire.

 

Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

Tonight, Will Coffin, urban shaman, and Bunny, his wobbly compatriot, find themselves watching a race.

 

Coffin: Infrastructure, Part 1 of 3

Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May

 

Nicholas Gretz, in a dirty pair of loose-tongued sneakers, eyed the murky pavement before him. Beside him roared a maroon 1965 Chevelle, which shivered under the forces its idling engine pushed through the bodywork of the car.

Nicholas had come to see a race.

Although he stood on the blacktop, the man had no fear of oncoming drivers. In a former life the road had been a highway, but, decades ago, its hazardous contours had caused it to be unhooked from the network that carried vacationing families and heavy-haul transports. The broad ditches had grown thick with underbrush, and the spruce and oak that lined the run sagged over the cement like weeping mourners, crowding the abandoned asphalt.

It hadn’t seemed so remote when he’d exited the new interstate. It had taken some searching before he could wheel gingerly onto the proper mud track, but, when he’d exited the driver’s seat and stretched his legs, he could hear far-off traffic – now, the close-walled lane was dominated by the rumble of the V8.

It was five minutes after midnight.

The evening had brought on a strong moon, but a brewing storm made it difficult for the light to find its way through the trees. Despite the conditions, Nicholas felt as if his gaze could trace every crack and pothole from his position to the turn, a short mile away.

He’d walked the place enough in the daytime that it might have even been true – he certainly needed no assistance to spot Lena.

At the distant corner, a girl of eighteen, whose long bleached hair shone against the dim, drifted from the scrub, and took her station at the center of the bend. She wore a men’s white t-shirt, over a ragged pair of jeans, and her thin wrist was laden with a cascade of glowing neon bracelets; pink, green, and purple.

Nicholas remembered watching that same delicate wrist intently as they’d stood waiting for her mom’s red Buick in the parking lot of Cowan’s roadhouse.

She’d been working. He’d been loitering.

“Lena!” he shouted. There was no answer; no look of recognition.

The girl raised her illuminated bangles, and the Chevelle’s rumbling thickened.

Gretz had once been a racer. He’d driven a 1987 Buick Regal.

At 12:11, a brown Ford pickup truck had approached in the northbound lane, and, without thinking, the girl dropped her hand to indicate they should wait, but, instead, had set free the finely-machined steel.

The air filled with the howl of controlled explosions and youthful disregard, then, with its departure, the Chevelle deposited a smoking layer of quickly-vapourising rubber in its wake.

Its headlights made no impression on the deep shadows, but its flame-hued rear bumper was somehow easily visible against the gloom.

Even in the roar, Nicholas recalled how a ‘65 Chevelle had seemed like a relic, and how quick he’d been to tell Dylan such.

For Gretz, time slowed.

At the half-mile mark he could see Lena’s face turn to horror, and her neon flailing become panicked.

CoffinThere’d been some question as to her heart’s preference, but the concern in her round eyes was clearly intended for the Chevelle. Within, Dylan had made an attempt to pull onto the soft shoulder, but his delayed reaction came too late.

The truck didn’t appear – the driver had spent the rest of his life learning to eat and write with his left hand, but had otherwise survived – and yet the noise was just as real as the original impact. The momentum of the pick-up’s heavy work-engine was enough to deflect the still-turning Chevelle, so that the muscle car’s back-end jumped from the concrete, and the vehicle twisted into the treeline.

Upon liftoff, however, the rear bumper carried with it Lena’s jaw and skull, sending her airborne in a radiant arc.

She landed in exactly the spot he’d watched her rise from.

From within the tangle of bush and timber that had grown along the road’s edge, a soft glimmer played on the leaves, and Gretz realized he was witnessing the afterglow of the wreck’s blaze.

He began to walk in its direction.

At the halfway point, he passed the race’s two other observers.

“I want to respect your privacy, and all that bull####,” said Bunny, “but Oregon’s nights are ####ing cold. Could you shuffle a little faster?”

Coffin, standing beside her, swung high his arcane silver chain, and kept his focus on the flickering ghost lights that were once a burning car.

Nicholas’ memory had no trouble filling in the blanks. His legs faltered as he moved beyond where he’d wrestled the Regal to a stop, but pressed on.

He worked hard to ignore the girl’s broken form as he pushed through the ferns and prodding branches.

Finally, standing beside the shattered Chevelle, he retrieved a mashed wad of ten dollar bills from the depths of his jeans’ pocket.

Then, as he’d been instructed, he tossed the money into the wreck’s phantom flames.

The race had kept him awake at night; Had pulled him from his bed; maybe had ruined his two attempts at marriage. He thought of the bleached blond girl with the supple wrist.

He began to weep.

“You win,” Nicholas told the dark, but the destruction had already begun to fade.

Seconds later, Lena followed.

(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)

 

Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

Freesound.org credits:

Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

FC61 – Noisy Vehicles

FC61 - Noisy Vehicles
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashCast061.mp3](Download/iTunes/RSS)

Hello, and welcome to FlashCast 61.

Prepare yourself for: Robocop, Gary Oldman, time travel, the unknown package, and Mulligan Smith.

* * *

Huge thanks to:

  • Jeff Lynch (Twitter – Facebook – Bothersomethings.com), for his Spot of Bother
  • Threedayfish (Facebook), for his brief cinematic considerations
  • Barry (Twitter – Facebook – BMJ2k.com), for his Hollywood Russell tale
  • Gibraltar for his Horrible Histories
  • David “Doc Blue” Wendt (Twitter – The Secret Lair) for his Doc Azrael offering

    • * * *

    Pulp-ular Press:

    * * *

    Backroom Plots

  • FP267 – Mulligan Smith in Use, Part 1 of 1

    •  

    * * *

    Also, many thanks, as always, Retro Jim, of RelicRadio.com for hosting FlashPulp.com and the wiki!

    * * *

    If you have comments, questions or suggestions, you can find us at https://flashpulp.com, or email us text/mp3s to skinner@skinner.fm.

    FlashCast is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

    FP267 – Mulligan Smith in Use, Part 1 of 1

    Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode two hundred and sixty-seven.

    Flash PulpTonight we present Mulligan Smith in Use, Part 1 of 1

    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp267.mp3]Download MP3
    (RSS / iTunes)

     

    This week’s episodes are brought to you by Haywire.

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

    Tonight, Mulligan finds himself chatting with a golf club carrying killer.

     

    Mulligan Smith in Use, Part 1 of 1

    Written by J.R.D. Skinner
    Art and Narration by Opopanax
    and Audio produced by Jessica May

     

    Despite the July heat, Mulligan Smith was still wearing his black hoodie as he sat beneath a broad-limbed elm and sipped at his coke slurpee.

    Mulligan SmithThe grass was thick, and the sun was bright. It was rare for the private investigator, who spent so much of his time wandering Capital City’s concrete, to encounter such an plush expanse of green, and Mulligan was fighting the urge to take off his shoes.

    If he hadn’t had an appointment, he knew he likely would have.

    Finally, his thoughts were invaded by the sudden landing of what looked to be a white egg, some fifteen feet from his freedom-yearning toes.

    A few moments later, a woman appeared to claim the ball.

    “Sure beats a public park, though,” Smith replied to the surprised newcomer’s peaked eyebrow.

    She was forty-four, with hair kept blonde by salon dyes, and a stomach kept flat by her time walking the course. Beneath her white visor – which matched her ivory shorts – she wore thin-rimmed sunglasses.

    “It’s the privacy that makes it nice,” the detective continued, “but what’s the point of spending the effort in maintaining this pristine beauty if so few get a chance to use it?”

    The dark lenses made it tough to judge her reactions, but Mulligan suspected she had an experienced poker face even under the best of conditions.

    “What are you doing here?” she asked.

    “Waiting for you, Carol,” replied Smith.

    “Waiting for me in the rough at the fourth hole’s dog leg?” As she spoke, she retrieved a club from her bag. Her motions were calm, but, then, she had a weapon in her grip.

    “Yes,” said Mulligan. “On Sunday it takes you about twenty minutes to get from the office to here, and another ten to hit the tee. You’re a little slow today, but I guess it’s because you don’t have to race your boss, Hartley, now that you’ve killed him – it was an accident though, right?

    “Anyhow, you also have a terrible tendency to overpower your first stroke on this hole, so I figured this would be a nice place to meet for a quiet chat.

    ”Name’s Mulligan Smith, by the way.”

    “How do you know all this?” asked the golfer.

    She held off on her swing, but it was the only sign that he’d phased her.

    Smith resolved to try harder.

    “I’m a P.I.,” replied Mulligan, “I spent most of last June following you from green to green.”

    “Why?”

    “Your husband thought you were having an affair.”

    The woman snorted, then, with a near-perfect roll of her shoulders, sent the ball high in the air.

    It landed squarely on the fairway.

    “Nicely done,” said Smith. “Of course, I discovered you were doing exactly what you’d said you were: Giving Hartley a mild bit of competition on the links while schmoozing, in hopes of winning a promotion back at the shop. The practice wasn’t getting you anywhere, though, was it? Well, that is, not till his funeral that September.”

    Carol’s motions were deliberate as she returned the five iron back to its wheeled bag. “Guess not, otherwise I’d be on the green. It’s been an interesting chat, but it’s time for me to go.”

    From beyond her retreating shoulder she added, “if you follow me, I’ll call security. Expect a restraining order shortly.”

    “I’ve got video,” replied Mulligan.

    She stopped and turned.

    “Video?”

    “Yeah, a few mean slices, and a few poorly timed hits of the long ball – all aimed generally at your boss’ noggin’.”

    From over the rim of her glasses, Carol squinted.

    “Oh, I get it now: Blackmail. Well, tough luck, pal, it was an accident. It wasn’t me that killed Hartley, it was his popping cyst, which I didn’t know about it.”

    “That’s not what Craig says. He seems to recall you mentioning it repeatedly over the years. He remembers it especially because you don’t often have the chance for conversation.

    “Tough to prove a case like that, maybe, but, between the recordings and your hubby’s word, I think we can probably prod a sympathetic member of the local constabulary into action.

    ”I hear Mrs. Hartley is getting married again – it might give her some comfort.”

    “Craig? – but why?”

    “To hear him tell it, he’s been pretty patient with your years of ass-kissing, but – even after cutting your green time down to just Sundays – once he learned of the extended work hours your promotion was going to mean, he realized your promise of having more time for him would never happen.

    “I’ve been to your place, you know. It reminds me of this golf course, in some ways. Shame to build such a beautiful thing without getting any use out of it.

    “My client is ready to move on. He wants a divorce. He also wants the house and the Prius. Most of all, though, he doesn’t want any arguments or lengthy legal proceedings. He knows how competitive you can get.”

    Behind the tint of her glasses, Carol considered the proposition.

    At the hole’s tee, a trio of frat boys had gathered. Their shaded eyes and exchanged shrugs had not yet worked them up to shouting something at the interfering loiterers, but Smith could tell, even at that distance, that it wouldn’t be long.

    On Mulligan’s left, the sound of sprinklers drifted up from the depths of a small ravine.

    “You know,” said Carol, “I hate golf. The problem is that I got a reputation as a solid player, and, though it didn’t help me with Hartley, it sure opened a few clients’ doors.

    “Fine. Tell Craig – tell him I’m sorry, and that he can have all of it.”

    Clearing his throat, Smith replied, “he’ll courier the paperwork to your office on Monday.”

    She nodded, then, leaving her ball where it lay, she walked from the course and towards the parking lot.

    Once she was gone, the detective stood and wiped the clinging clippings of greenery from his jeans.

    In reality, although he had truly witnessed the near misses, Mulligan had no video. After a week and a half of observation he’d been entirely confident of her marital integrity, and so, as he wasn’t particularly a fan of amateur sports, he’d dumped the video to free up space for future paying endeavours.

    Even if he’d kept it, however, he knew it was an aggrieved husband’s word against his wife’s, and unlikely to gain much traction in court.

    It seemed like poor justice, but he hoped that Hartley’s widow might find some happiness, now that the way had been cleared for her impending marriage to Craig. Perhaps it was nothing more than their mutual sense of abandonment that had held them together since their meeting at a company function, but at least she’d get to spend some of Carol’s money.

    With a shrug, Mulligan headed for his Tercel.

     

    Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

    Freesound.org credits:

    Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

    – and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.

    FPGE7 – The Pilling, by Rich the Time Traveler

    Welcome to Flash Pulp Guest-isode 7.

    Flash PulpTonight we present The Pilling, by Rich the Time Traveler

    [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulpGE7.mp3]Download MP3
    (RSS / iTunes)

     

    This week’s episode is brought to you by The Mob.

     

    Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

    Tonight, we present a tale regarding a finicky feline, as provided by our own Rich the Time Traveller.

     

    The Pilling, by Rich the Time Traveler

    Written by Rich the Time Traveller
    Art and Narration by Opopanax
    and Audio produced by Jessica May

     

    The young blonde girl bounded quickly through the bedroom doors. She carried a writhing mass of white, black, and caramel-mocha colored spots that twisted and resolved itself into a calico cat.

    “I got her,” she said cheerfully still dressed in half pajamas and half school clothes.

    The man and the woman turned to her from the hustled chaos of their morning preparations. The man was in a dull grey t-shirt bearing the faded design of some inside joke or geeky reference long rendered unreadable with sweat shorts of the same hue. The woman contrasted in a full-length pajama shirt of yellow that was painfully bright for the hour. The opposition of their palettes was united by their similarly pillow rustled hairstyles.

    “Nice work sweetheart. Put her in the bathroom, would you?” the woman requested. Raising her voice she added, “And finish getting ready for school. Have you and your brother brushed your teeth yet?” An audible groan of frustration came from the hallway at that signaling the unseen boy had, indeed, not completed that task yet.

    The girl propelled the complaining cat through the second doorway to her right and pulled the door shut. “I have,” she exclaimed and bounced out the way she’d originally come, half-humming and half-singing an unidentifiable song to herself.

    “Let’s get this over with before she goes crazy in there,” said the man nodding his head towards the now-shut door. “It’s not fair making her wait for it.”

    Agreement washed across the woman’s face and she moved with him towards the room. Reflexively he gave her shoulders a squeeze as he came up behind her and, after rubbing them for a few seconds, scratched her back.

    “That feels good. A little lower… harder,” she breathed as his nails worked across her nightshirt and then he reached past her to open the bathroom door.

    They stepped into the neat and mundane room shutting the opening behind them. It was of typical and unremarkable suburban construction. A shower, a far too small bathtub, a far too large mirror, the ubiquitous bar of lights, double sinks molded in synthetic cultured marble, and safely tasteful light tan tiles. Secretly the woman wished the original owners had been a little bolder in their choices of decor, but they had made their own mark in the time they’d lived there. The walls were a deep turquoise-blue color and a piece of stained glass hung in the oversized window above the tub depicting a river flowing through a mountain range; though with the faint rays of sun passing from the outside, the rich azure looked more like an abyssal crevasse instead. The man had been less covert with his sentiments and had expressed them on many occasions. He would have liked nothing more than to rip the whole space apart and rebuild it with a much more efficient layout, but that would have to wait until a future opportunity arose.

    The cat hunched between the two basins with her tail of black and brown curled around her feet as a tortie-colored trim. She let out a growl that quickly fell apart to a plaintive meow.

    “She’s in a mood today, isn’t she?” the woman pondered disinterestedly.

    The man nodded and mumbled a yes as he retrieved an indigo and cream striped towel that lay folded by the tub. Wordlessly, he handed it to the woman who unfurled it and moved towards the cat. The feline target only dipped her face and pleaded with big eyes as the woman wrapped the cloth around her, leaving just the calico’s head protruding.

    Meanwhile, the man had slid to the other side of the counter and had picked up an amber colored bottle. Popping the top, he dumped the contents onto his hand. A single pink half-circle nestled in the cracks of his palm. The cat redoubled her effort and managed another weak growl.

    “Come on, girl,” said the man in a gentle but slightly irritated voice. “Last dose. Seven down, one to go.”

    He turned and plucked a white plastic tool from a cup in what was clearly marked as his own area by the other items surrounding it. Taking it in one hand, he pushed back a plunger with his thumb and then pressed the half-pill inside a pair of soft rubber flaps on the opposite end.

    Reaching out with his free hand, he scritched the head of the cat and then rubbed it briefly. “Relax, this won’t take long and then you can be on your way.”

    The cat struggled within the linen embrace of the woman. “She’s really wound up. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

    “Yeah,” asserted the man has he placed his thumb and first finger on either side of the calico’s mouth and began to lever her jaw open.

    The cat gave a low mewl and lurched unexpectedly. The woman gave sharp cry and the irritated animal broke free and flew from where she’d been held.

    “You OK?” asked the man, dropping the piller.

    “The little bitch got me with her back claws.” The woman turned her wrist and revealed a scarlet rivulet running from the puncture in her forearm.

    “I think the correct term is Queen,” replied the man stepping closer to inspect the wound. The woman’s eyes clearly underscored that she didn’t find his joke funny this time, or likely the first hundred times he had used it. A single pregnant orb of blood fell from her arm onto the vanity and shattered making many spindly legs about the point of impact. The man grabbed the towel and wiped it away and then pressed it to the woman’s injury without further comment.

    “I swear if she caused me to get any on my shirt, I’m going to use her to make hat,” remarked the woman with the practice of an old and hollow threat while she inspected her pajamas for any freckles that may have splattered on them.

    The man lifted the cloth and, satisfied that the bleeding had stopped, handed it back to the woman before walking to where the bundle of claws and fur had escaped. Stepping in the tub, he plucked her from the corner above it where she was huddled and slightly shaking. The calico complained meekly as he lifted her by the scruff.

    “You know deep inside this is good for you and you don’t want that UTI coming back so just cooperate, OK?” scolded the man pointlessly.

    The pair worked speedily and the cat once more had her paws ensconced safely, though more tightly than originally. The man plucked the rod from the surface and, once he’d verified the medicine was still in place, quickly pulled the calico’s jaw open with his free hand. Darting the tool towards the open mouth, he snapped the plunger home with his thumb sending the pill tumbling into her throat. He now held her mouth gently shut and, after waiting a few seconds to be sure she had swallowed it, gave the mottled head a playful tussle.

    Their body language signaling relief, the man and woman stepped away and let the towel fall from the cat. The man turned the faucet on his sink to a slow trickle.

    “There, it’s over. You wanna drink of water to wash it down, girl?” he asked.

    Kar'WickThe cat remained motionless and growled. Suddenly the white, black, and caramel-mocha hair was all standing on end and she gave a loud hiss that faded back to a moan as she leapt from the counter. Diving to the floor, the calico sprinted across it to cower behind a pair of overflowing hampers where she began caterwauling; quite in earnest this time.

    “What crawled up her a…,” the woman started only to have her words cut short by a shattering sound. A spear of shiny black chitin pierced through the large window and cleaved the stained glass in two along the course of the river.

    “What the fuck!?” said the man much less rhetorically than usual, but no answer would come. As a rumbling sound grew and the house shook, the walls and ceiling were ripped away to leave them all face-to-many-eyed-face with Kar’Wick, the Spider God.

     

    Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

    Freesound.org credits:

    Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.

    – and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.